


you took away my friend (my buddy)

by nervousn8



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield Have a Good Relationship, Depression, Established Relationship, Eventual Healing, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Neil Hargrove's A+ Parenting, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Suicidal Ideation, Temporary Character Death, Vaguely Bittersweet, kind of, mixtapes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:47:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27815563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nervousn8/pseuds/nervousn8
Summary: Billy doesn’t get a funeral.They took him away in a body bag, and he doesn’t get a funeral.It’s not fair. None of it is fair.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 6
Kudos: 107





	1. Chapter 1

Hargrove apologized on Valentine's day, of all days. 

Steve hadn't really known what to do at the time. He'd just kind of waved him off with an, "It's cool, man," even though it really wasn't, and he'd assumed that would be the end of it. He'd -wrongly- assumed that he and Hargrove would go back to avoiding each other like they had before he'd apologized. They’d go back to not making eye contact unless it was to pass the basketball, not speaking unless it was to debate a strategy to win, not being in the same vicinity unless it was for- basketball. 

And then when he dropped Max off at Joyce’s, where Steve was watching them all, he'd asked Steve if he had a light. 

Just a simple, “You got a light, Harrington?” 

Only this time, when Hargrove said his name, it hadn't been taunting or condescending. It'd just been his name.

The next time Hargrove dropped Max off, Steve stayed outside for a little longer after he lit his cigarette. And then the next time, it'd been a little longer. The fourth time, Steve smoked one, too. 

Somewhere between the seventh time Billy dropped Max off and the eleventh, ‘Hargrove’ became ‘Billy’ in his head. ‘Harrington’ became ‘Steve’ out of Billy’s mouth.

They became friends.

Only talking when they dropped the kids off turned into speaking after school while they waited to drive their respective children home. That turned into talking in the morning, too. And eventually, that turned into talking late at night down by the quarry when they both should have been sleeping. Cigarettes and secrets were passed back and forth as the weather got warmer, and Steve began to feel at home in all of Billy’s blues.

He’d forgotten that Billy bled red.

His blond best friend had turned up at his door unannounced, broken and bloody and bruised, tears in swollen blue eyes but that stupid fucking smile on his face. It’d been April. It’d been Billy’s birthday. Steve had asked and Billy had deflected, so Steve did what he did best and simply took care of it. ‘Mother henned’, as Billy so commonly teases him for. 

And Billy had tucked his swollen face into Steve’s shoulder, and his own broad shoulders had shaken, and all Steve could do was hold him and hope that his presence would be enough.

Steve hadn't really slept that night, had instead watched Billy doze pressed into his shoulder on the couch. Had carded his hands through hair spray crunchy curls and fought off the nauseating urge to vomit when the simple feel of Billy under his hands made his heart explode. Tried not to take it too hard when he woke up the next morning and Billy was gone.

Somewhere between then and now, ‘Billy’ had become ‘baby’. 

Not that that mattered anymore.

Steve presses down down _down,_ working in time with Robin’s counting to put air back in Billy’s broken body, dutifully ignoring the red and black and _notbluenotbluenotblue_ painting his hands like a morbid picture. He doesn’t look at Billy’s face- can’t look at his face- can’t face the emptiness that he knows is going to be there. There won't be an emptiness, though, because they’re doing CPR and that always saves people in the movies and they’re going to save Billy they have to save Billy-

They take Billy away in a body bag. The army ambulance flashes red and blue, but it doesn't turn on its sirens. Sirens are only for alive people, and Billy isn’t that. Not anymore.

“Steve?” Robin calls from his side, soft and gentle and concerned. “You okay?”

His hands are still red and black. Billy is all over his hands but not in Billy, why couldn’t he just stay in him? Why did the Upside Down take everything Steve needed? Even the Saint Christopher pendant is red and black and-

When had he taken that? Why would he take Billy's pendant? Billy only let him wear it when he was feeling all soft and mushy and emotional, and that was never. Billy didn’t do soft. Where was Billy?

“Steve,” Robin whispers, “you’re crying.”

They took Billy.

  
  


_What's the softest way to say_

_you took away my friend, my buddy?_

_What's the kindest way to say_

_you took away my friend?_

_What's the kindest way to say_

_you took away my friend, my buddy?_

_What's the kindest way to say_

_the end?_


	2. Chapter 2

Billy doesn’t get a funeral.

They took him away in a body bag, and he doesn’t get a funeral. 

It’s not fair. None of it is fair.

Steve keeps the Saint Christopher pendant. He sinks into the bottom of the shower when he finally gets home, stupid tattered sailor costume still on, and he watches all of the red and the black turn the water dirty where it swirls over the drain. He has to scrub at his hands until they’re pink and stinging to get all of what used to be Billy off of him. 

He’d- never once thought that that would be something he’d have to do. Wash Billy down the drain. Wash his hands of the boy he might have loved. 

His hands are pink and stinging now, and the pendant is warm to the touch, but not skin warm. Not warm like it’s been resting between Billy’s pectorals, not warm like Steve’s been tweaking it between his fingers while his thoughts wandered, but warm like the shower water. Warm like it’s been cleaned. 

Cleaned of Billy. Billy down the drain, in a body bag, whisked away. Away from Steve. It’s not fair.

They don’t give Billy a funeral because they don’t give back Billy’s body. They take his body and they give Steve money to keep quiet, to pretend, to forget. How can Steve forget? Billy’s brown leather jacket is still hanging in the closet downstairs by the front door. The pillow on the left side of the bed still smells like chlorine and cigarette smoke and the products Billy has to use to maintain his curls. A pair of his converses are still kicked under the bed. 

The pendant is heavy below Steve’s collarbones. If he could feel anything, it would probably be guilty. Max doesn’t have the pendant or Billy. Max doesn’t have her brother or any of his things. 

Neil makes Max get rid of all of Billy’s things, and now all of Billy’s things live in the basement of Steve’s house because Max didn’t want to let them go, but she couldn’t keep them. She got to take a few shirts and books and tapes, things Neil wouldn’t recognize as Billy’s because Neil is a monster they can’t kill with fireworks and sacrifice and he doesn’t like anything that reminds him of how beautiful and wonderful and  _ gone _ Billy is. Doesn’t like anything that’s Billy. Max hates him, and Billy hated him, and Steve hates him, too. 

Steve  _ hates. _

Steve is angry. Always angry, always guilty, finally feeling and wishing he couldn’t. Snappy with only himself and his reflection, hateful and angry and empty and gone. Billy’s gone. They took him. Put him in a body bag and never gave him back. 

Billy never got to see the ocean again.

Steve struggles to breathe sometimes. Wraps himself up in Billy’s old clothes or spritzes a little bit of his cologne and still can’t breathe, still suffocates on the nausea that expands right where his diaphragm is supposed to be. That’s where his heart fell when they didn’t give Billy back, and that’s where it stays when the summer slowly turns to autumn. It pushes up sometimes, tries to spill out of his mouth or his eyes but he always pushes it back in, swallows it down and blinks it away and smiles and laughs because nobody got to know Billy like he did and now nobody ever will. 

School starts for the kids and Steve quits his job. He didn’t need it anyway, told people his dad made him get it because that was easier than telling people he got a job because Billy got one. It was easier than telling the kids that he knew he would go insane while Dustin was gone at camp. Easier than admitting that he hadn’t gotten into college and he needed an excuse to tell his parents when they asked him why he was taking a gap year. 

If someone asked him about it, Steve would say he’d taken the gap year to have some time to relax. If they’d pressured him for a real answer, he would have said he didn’t get into college and was going to spend the next year saving up for money for community college. Nobody needed to know that the real reason was because he wanted to be around for Billy. Wanted to be there in case something happened and Billy needed him. 

But Billy is gone. They took him and they never gave him back, so Steve quits his job. He doesn’t need an excuse anymore. He doesn’t need a coverup. He’s just a borderline alcoholic trust fund baby now. He’s nothing just like he used to be. 

Steve turned 19 in July, twelve days after his world ended. It took him two whole months to find the present Billy had gotten him, had hidden away in the back of the poolhouse because he knew Steve didn’t go in there. It was just a mixtape, and at the same time, it wasn’t.

_ Pretty Boy, _ it says. Billy’s neat handwriting in blue sharpie stares back at Steve and his heart turns to ash in his chest. 

He can’t listen to it, can barely hold it without choking on tears and guilt and emptiness. It taunts him from the drawer of his dresser where he used to keep his weed and his skin mags and now it’s just the tape. Like a dirty little secret that he can barely think about having without losing feeling in his legs and sinking to the floor. Nothing makes it any better. A piece of Billy that he never even got to give sits unlistened to and neglected and cold in the top drawer of Steve’s dresser, but he can’t even touch it because there were no warm hands handing it over. 

The phone rings, and it rings, and it rings. Steve doesn’t answer.

Billy’s fingers were thicker than his, just a little bit shorter, too. Calloused in ways Steve’s weren’t. Billy liked the way their hands fit together even when he pretended he didn’t. Steve never pretended not to like the feel of Billy’s hands. They were warm and calloused and tan and the center of his palms were always dry somehow and he would blush when Steve kissed them and  _ he misses him so much. His hands are so empty and cold. _

The mixtape starts with Billy swearing at him to get a better music taste. Steve has to pause it because he’s crying too loudly to hear what Billy says next. 

_ “You’re sleeping upstairs right now, Pretty Boy, and you sleep like the fucking dead after we fuck- you look so pretty when you get off.” _

Steve laughs until he cries, pauses it again to press his face into the back of the denim jacket that doesn’t really smell anything like Billy anymore and sob. Of course  _ that _ would be what he opens with. It’s been nearly three months and the sound of Billy’s voice is so earth-shattering that Steve can’t even breathe. 

Billy filled side A with cheesy love songs and terrible jokes. Fills side B with more hard rock and metal songs than anything else, songs that make Steve’s chest vibrate with the bass. It’s a huge joke but he can’t stop crying. Billy made this for him, because of him, and he never got to deliver it. Steve’s insides melt away.

_ “Look, I’m not great at this stuff.” _

Max gasps, drops the glass she’d been holding and turns to face the tiny countertop tape player in the kitchen. Steve freezes too, stares at the machine that hadn’t been making any noise for a while now. The tape had ended. The songs were over. He didn’t know there was more of it, more of Billy’s voice, hidden behind a full minute and a half of silence.

_ “I’ve done a lot of shit I’m not proud of. Beating your face in, for one thing. I didn’t apologize for that like I should have. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t fix the concussion I gave you. Your little hat wearing brat, Henderson, he told me you had to quit basketball because another concussion could have led to memory loss. I did that to you. I won’t ever forgive myself for it, and I don’t know how you did, but- fuck, man-” _

“Steve,” Max whispers, tears on her reddening cheeks. She’s shaking. “What is this?”

_ “You’re so good, Steve. You’re so good and I’m just not. I don’t know what gives you nightmares like you have, but I wish I could take them away. Someone as fundamentally good as you shouldn’t have to wake up screaming the way you do. If I ever find what did that to you, I swear to god, Steve, I swear to fucking god, I’ll kill it. You don’t deserve to be afraid.” _

“Billy made me a mixtape for my birthday.” He answers mechanically, tensed and shaking and hopelessly, undeniably cold.

_ “I don’t know a lot of things. I pretend like I do, but I don’t. I haven’t in a long time. I’m only seventeen. All I want is to see the ocean and make you happy and be worthy of the forgiveness you gave me. You’re so good, Steve- you’d probably be a better brother for Max. You could actually teach her things that matter. All I’ve ever done is scare her and make her cry. You both- you’re both so fucking  _ good, _ Steve. I wish- I’m not-” _

The tape chokes up, crackles a little, and Steve can hear the sound of sniffling. He doesn’t know if it’s himself or Max or the tape. 

_ “Happy Birthday, Stevie. Thank you for putting up with me. I… I hope you’ll let me show you the ocean, someday.” _

The tape clicks off. The kitchen is dead silent. Steve didn’t even know that was there.

He lays in bed at night and plays the ending message again and again. Ignores the doorbell ringing with trick or treaters. Today would have made it a year since he met Billy.

The phone rings, and it rings, and it rings.

He picks up only once. It’s Dr. Owens from Hawkins lab. He says Billy’s alive.

Steve hangs up.

They’d taken Billy away in a body bag. Billy had bled all over Steve’s hands long after the life left his body. Billy had gone down the drain and Steve’s hands had been pink and Billy never got to see the ocean but now they’re trying to tell him Billy is  _ alive? _

He doesn’t go to the lab. Can barely function through the haze of alcohol and tears. The Saint Christopher pendant moves in time with each rapid breath, grows moist with the tears that drip off of Steve’s chin and onto his chest. Max comes by and tells him Billy really is alive. Asks him why he hasn’t visited yet.

Steve doesn’t know.

He does, though. He knows that if this is a trick, if this is some kind of ploy to make sure he still hasn’t told anyone what happened, it will kill him. He knows that he’ll drive his car over the edge of the quarry without a second thought. He can’t go back to empty after just starting to feel the tiniest bit full. Maybe his heart really will turn to ash in his chest this time, and he’ll throw it all up like he keeps dreaming and it’s black and red just like Billy had been when they took him away and never gave him back.

There’s a nice lady in a suit jacket at the front desk. A nurse leads him down a short hallway and to an open door. 

He hears Billy laugh inside.

He goes home.

He listens to the tape, listens to Billy laugh when he tells him his music taste is shit, and then he gets in the car and he goes back. The laugh matches. It’s not going to be a fake body full of stuffing like they did with Will. They’re not lying.

The nice suit jacket lady smiles a little warily at him this time. The nurse leads him down the short hallway and to the open door again. She smiles all soft and gentle and sad, like Joyce did before they moved, and pats him once on the shoulder. She steps away and goes further down the hallway. There’s no laughing inside of the open door this time.

He steps inside and his shoes squeak on the tiled floor. Billy - _ Billy-  _ looks up from the book he’s reading and his smile is warm and soft and his eyes are blue and alive and catching the light and Steve is crying because Billy is  _ here, they gave him back. They took him but they gave him back. _

Steve’s shaking, sinking into the ugly plastic chair by Billy’s bed and tucking his face into his hands and crying. Then Billy’s hands, thick and calloused and oh so warm are tugging at the shoulders of his sweater and pulling him forward and tucking him in and Steve is still crying, still struggling to breathe, still weeping and clutching at the flimsy hospital gown that covers warm skin. Billy kisses his forehead and holds him close and whispers “It’s okay, Pretty Boy, we’re okay.”

They gave him back. They gave Billy back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im ashamed to say this stupid thing came about bc i heard the song on tik tok paired with something from fucking mcyt so there's THAT


End file.
